In this photo taken Sept. 9, 2023 an unhoused person sleeps in the Park Blocks area of Eugene, Ore.
Brian Bull / KLCC
After 20 years, Lane County officials have announced that they’ll stop using the Point-in-Time count this year for gauging homelessness.
Since 2005, the county’s conducted annual counts of sheltered individuals, and biennial counts of those without shelter in areas where unhoused people are known to congregate.
But Jason Davis, public information officer for Lane County Health and Human Services, told KLCC that the Homeless Management Information System and its By Name List launched in 2019 are now considered more reliable.
Davis said this as someone who’s gone out several times into the streets to carry out the PIT surveys.
“In my experience, about one out of eight people said ‘Yes’ to participation,” he said. “So what I would say to folks who are reticent about the change is that that system of physically going out and asking people to participate is not accurate.”
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Lane County’s Poverty and Homelessness Board unanimously supported the change at its Dec. 18 meeting, where James Ewell, the county’s Homelessness and Community Action manager, presented the recommendation. He said that 150 projects and more than 30 agencies provide data daily to the HMIS, and over the past year there’s been a loss of some partners in the PIT count effort.
But this doesn’t mean there won’t be a survey of unsheltered people next year, as HUD still provides federal funding based on that count.
“It just really depends on what the federal government and what HUD requires,” said Davis. “This year there’s a lack of information around those requirements, and so we are kind of left to do our own interpretation. We certainly wouldn’t just elect not to participate.”
Typically, the PIT count would be done on the last night of January, with results being released in late spring. Data from the 2025 count showed 3,509 people were unhoused across Lane County, a 14% increase from 2024.
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Davis also emphasized that the PIT count is a shifting number, given the people moving in — and out — of homelessness.
“It is in no way, shape or form, supposed to be considered down- to-the-number accurate,” he said.
The PIT count is also regarded as a “heavy lift,” utilizing many participants and staff. Besides the tally itself, crunching the numbers and issuing a final report are also intensive.
“We believe it’s going to be just as accurate, if not more accurate than all the work that we put in time for the physical count,” Davis said regarding the switch to HMIS data. He said not doing the PIT count will free up Lane County’s staff and resources.
“They’re putting that effort towards ensuring that the maximum amount of dollars come into Lane County for work on unhoused services. So that that money, that staff time, is being leveraged and utilized to its highest and best use, which I think is a win for everybody.”
Several homeless support and advocacy organizations were asked to respond to the county’s decision but did not respond to KLCC by press time. But the county’s decision to drop the PIT count was razzed by some readers in the end-of-year issue of Eugene Weekly.
Brian Bull is a reporter with KLCC. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
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